Hopes to settle TikTok’s fate rests on Xi JINPING call

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — President Donald Trump, who recently accused Xi Jinping of working to “conspire” against the US, hopes to finalize the fate of video-sharing app TikTok and make progress on trade talks in a phone call with the Chinese leader on Friday.

“I’m speaking with President Xi, as you know, on Friday, having to do with TikTok, and also trade,” Trump said Thursday in an interview with Fox News.

“And we’re very close to deals on all of it. And my relationship with China is very good.”

The call will be the second between the two men since Trump returned to the White House in January, and the third since the start of the year.

On 5 June, the US president said Xi had invited him to visit China, and he issued a similar invitation for the Chinese leader to come to the US.

So far, no travel plans have been made, but several analysts expect Xi to repeat his offer, especially knowing that Trump is always keen to be received with diplomatic fanfare.

TikTok

“Each leader will aim to signal that he has outmaneuvered the other” in trade talks focused on tariffs, Ali Wyne, an expert on US-China relations at the International Crisis Group, predicted in a note.

The pair could settle the TikTok drama, after Trump repeatedly put off a ban under a law designed to force Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell its US operations for national security reasons.

Trump told reporters on Thursday that he hoped to “finalize something on TikTok.”